Color Comp.

This is what I have developed for my website's color scheme so far.

Website Wireframe

My website's black and white wireframe.

Website Concept

For my portfolio website I want to use the theme of an old abandoned carnival, something that could relate to the oddness that my artwork has. There's a lot of material to pull from for this idea, using sorts of games and attractions and re-working them to my website could turn out really cool. I want to have a grungy kind of color scheme that would give it an abandoned, worn and rusted look. I plan to use roll-over images and animated gifs to make it more interesting. 

Website organization

I want to organize my website by having a home page, a Gallery page and a Resume page. The Gallery page will be split up into 3 categories, Drawing, Photoshop and 3D rendering.

For text I decided to use a font called Bleeding Cowboys, it's grungy while at the same time elegant, I think this font has good visual appeal. The secondary font I am using is called Didot and I think it works well together with the main, the body font will be Arial, which I think has a good contrast to the other 2 fonts. 

"Winter Duel"

This work is a print from an etching I did for my printmaking class in 2007.
My process of creating this piece was that I started by sketching trying to think of an idea, I created the winged character wielding the sword first, then I created the staff of the figure on the left. Then I created the town below in my sketch and added the moon lastly. I transferred the sketch onto the surface of a the wax covered metal plate using tracing paper. Then I began scratching out the design using a sharp metal stylus. After that the plate was dipped into acid and the design was burned into the metal plate and it was ready to cover with ink and use for printing.

I enjoy printmaking very much. When I was thinking of what kind of design to do I was inspired by the change of seasons, at the time it was the end of fall and winter was beginning. The figure on the right represents the season of fall and the figure on the left represents the season of winter.

Color schemes

Not much of my artwork is done in color, I usually just draw in black and white so for this I tried to find drawings I have done in the past that involved color and tried to get some results from them. I like the top bar's color scheme a lot.

Investigating the portrayal of other fine artist's work on the web

Many artists post their work and share it with the web using pre-existing websites like deviantART or Flickr, but many take the time to create a web space devoted to showcasing their work in a more presentable space.

I took the time to investigate some personal portfolio websites of illustrators and other fine artist on the web and I noticed that many aren't very similar visually, but some organization techniques are used over and over in some, such as the use of a wall of small thumbnails, and many break down their work in to several sections if they work using a variety of media. Most of them seem to be HTML based, just showing of still work in a not too crazy way, I think it's a good idea to focus the website simply around the artwork instead of placing some crazy flash opening, unless that's the focus of the artists work. There's something about flash presentations on portfolio websites that just make me think "smoke & mirrors".

It's a shame how overtime some of the artist's portfolio websites disappear overtime, there used to be a great website for an illustrator/ website design team named Holographix, their website was very impressive and comical.

Some of the websites I enjoyed were:
Okimi.com The portfolio of illustrator Kimiaki Yaegashi, I like the stylish yet simple organization this website uses to present the art. The website's appearance complements the art that it showcase and I find it very visually appealing.

Torikago Garou the homepage of artist Musubu Nakai, this website uses a basic HTML approach but I like the straight-forward organization, it really brings your attention to the content and lets you appreciate the artists work.

The portfolio of artist Logan Hicks , This web page has a very professional feel to it, even though the background may be a gaudy design it flows well with the kind of artwork he does. It's like if it was a business card that grew into something much more, that's the kind of feel I get from this website.

The portfolio of horror photographer Joshua Hoffine , This webpage uses flash in a refined way. The website uses a lot of white space, but it works well. It's well organized and uses a vertical sidebar of thumbnails for the viewer to skip from work to work, I like the use of a vertical sidebar on the right.

The website of artist Sickboy, This webpage uses flash in a highly creative way, it presents a table full of things and when you hover your mouse above the object it becomes more colorful and interesting. There is also secondary navigation bar at the bottom to quickly get to the place you want if you didn't have time to look threw the contents of the table. I think it's really cool how in depth the flash aspect of this website is, it kind of seems unnecessary at times, but it works for the most part.

I can't say that I noticed that many similarities in the websites I have looked at, but I think that's a good thing, an artist should be somewhat of an individual.